Home‘Closing the Gap’ – The South West Peninsula strategic rail blueprint

‘Closing the Gap’ – The South West Peninsula strategic rail blueprint

‘Closing the Gap’ is the Peninsula Rail Task Force’s plan for investment into the South West Peninsula’s strategic rail network. The plan was officially launched to Government on 22nd November 2016.

The plan defines the Task Force’s ambition of a 21st century rail network underpinned by three priorities:

Resilience and reliability

Faster journey times

Improved connectivity with sufficient capacity

After carrying out extensive research and study with the rail industry, ‘Closing the Gap’ sets out a long term cascade of improvements needed to close the growing gap between the South West and the rest of the UK in terms of rail funding and improvements. Investment is expected to deliver over £8.4 billion in economic benefits over the next 20 years.

Read ‘Closing the Gap’ – The South West Peninsula strategic rail blueprint here.

The task force has also produced an appendix to the report that list in more details outputs from the studies and has additional information to support the recommendations made within ‘Closing the gap’. The following work stream studies are also available:

NOTE: If you are using Internet Explorer or do not have access to Dropbox please download ‘Closing the Gap’ here and the appendix here.

The improvements identified in ‘Closing the Gap’ have also been set out within a timeline which is available here.

The Task Force has developed a sequence illustration to show what is needed and when it is needed by, showing how all of the improvements from the plan fit together. The sequence illustration is available here.

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The PRTF welcomed the opportunity to submit a response to the Call for Evidence to the Williams Review announced in December 2018.

The rail industry is currently fragmented as a result of competing goals across the public and private sector. This is impacting on delivering the ultimate aim of a reliable and resilient railway.

The existing operating model for the rail industry is not fit for purpose and the PRTF joins the call for the establishment of an industry wide strategic body to interpret government policy into an overall framework.

Cornwall Council
Devon County Council
Plymouth City Council
Somerset County Council
Torbay Council
Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP
Heart of the South West LEP

The Task Force has a Board, which oversees the work of the partnership, comprising the LEPs and local authorities. It also has a Stakeholder Advisory Group, open to anyone with an interest in rail, to inform the work of the Task Force. More information is available here.

Network Rail
More information on the South West Rail Resilience Programme, the project name for resilience works of the rail line between Dawlish and Teignmouth, can be found here.